Teacher Training

I think I'm getting a cold :( So I definitely need to have a nap this afternoon, but while the generator is going, I want to put some photos up on this blog... we're having a compound party tonight, so there probably won't be time, and tomorrow, well, I don't know if the generator will be on at all during the day, since it's a Sunday... even generators need a Sabbath :)

This morning, we had our third teacher training session. It went pretty well, I think. We were teaching them how to use the ABC books and the story books that the team here has produced. The teachers that we're training really aren't used to a real structured, systematic way of teaching, so they end up teaching way too much during a class and not really focussing on one particular letter or part of reading... so no one ends up learning all that much. So today we gave them a nice step by step way to go through the letters. We gave them lots of time to practice teaching each other, so hopefully the lessons will stick in their minds :)

I really enjoy these teacher training sessions - it's so much fun to get out there and get into something that's really tangible and is really doing something to help in these church schools! Plus, I just really love to teach, and it's fun to be able to try to help the participants in the course understand things and learn more.

Last week, I taught them some different kinds of games and activities that they could do in the classroom, rather than the "repeat after me" style of teaching. Jackie had her camera, so here's a picture of me and Amos playing a round of Bingo with the teachers.

And, just because that picture's not terribly cute, here's a cute one of little Zane Khawaija.

He's already getting kind of big! But he's still too small to catch that pesky rat that I keep seeing in the kitchen at lunch time! Even though Richard had his killer flip flop AND a wrench to back the kitty up, Zane still chickened out on catching that big ol' kitchen rat. I guess I'll just have to keep fattening up that kitty so he's a bit bigger than the rats...

New Stuff

Since it IS called a store, and we're probably all going to get some horrible lung disease from breathing in all the dust as we clean it, I think it's only fair that we get a few new things out of the deal:

1. A lovely basket, with a lid, which is going to become my laudry basket (once I clean 20 years of dust off of it!). Zane got to the plastic bag that's been hanging on my closet door holding my dirty underwear since I got here. Zane won in the battle of bag vs. kitten.

2. Two small baskets, which will go nicely on the dresser or something to hold bits and pieces of whatever it is that we happen to start collecting around here.

3. A whole crate full of bullets and ammunition. Ok, we don't get to keep it... it's all going to get buried in an undisclosed location under the cover of night... that's what they do with old ammo around here. If you go and turn it in to the authorities, it gets sold in the shops. Apparently, the tea ladies are selling bullets under the counter now, too. How convenient - you can buy your tea and your bullets in one place now - it's almost as good as a 7-11!

4. And the best thing of all... a brand new deck of UNO cards from 1979. They're older than Grace, and yet they're in perfect condition, not a scratch or a bent corner in the lot. Amazing. If it were still 1980, we could have sent away the coupon and gotten an UNO T-shirt for only $3.95, plus an extra $1.50 for shipping outside of the continental US. But we're a few years too late to take advantage of that offer...

We've already played several rounds of UNO. Of course, I've been letting everyone else win, since I'm such a nice person...

Well, the generator is set to go off in 3 minutes, so I'd better shut down and get myself into my bed. Tomorrow I'll try to get some good pictures of our teacher training course!

The old Store

"Few things have as much importance in Sudan during the dry season as water when you're thirsty, lights when it's dark, and a fan when it's hot. For hose living at the center in Juba, all three are supplied through the electricity of our generator..."

This is a quote from the February 1985 edition of this branch's Prayer and Praise bulliten. We've uncovered all sorts of things as we're clearing out the store rooms so they can be converted into offices. When everyone was evacuated from here in the 1980's, everyone just packed their bits and pieces into this big store house. While some people have collected some of their more valuable things through the years, there's an awful lot of stuff still in that store! And since it used to be an actual store that imported goods from as far away as the States in order to sell to expats from other organizations, there were all sorts of things in there! We found a huge crate full of brand new, never opened jars of spices - allspice, basil, dried chives... of course, they're all over 20 years old, and no longer any good :(

I've been having a lot of fun going through the files and papers that have been left there - everything from the prayer and praise bullitens to reciepts for the work that was done on the old cars. This place used to be such a busy center - people coming and going from all corners of the country, using this as their base. There were workshops to fix the cars, the store to buy all the supplies, and in an era when computers weren't too common, a whole container full of computers on which to enter linguistic data and type up hand-written translations! Somehow, it must be quite sad for folks to come back here and see how it's really just a shadow of what it once was... and knowing that it probably will never be the same again, since we work in such a different way than we used to in those days.

And yet, from the quote that I copied above, it seems like some things never change!

Spring Break Blog 5

I don't think I quite finished the saga of our ride back home from my Spring Break holiday. We left that place early on a Tuesday morning, and since we had a lot of time, the rally driver decided he didn't feel like driving. So all of us girls took turns driving the whole way home. James and his friend sat in the back of the truck, and I think they were a little scared of our driving. I know that I almost lost them out of the back of the truck once when I hit a series of potholes really quite fast! The back of the truck sorta went snacking all over the road and I couldn't avoid the biggest holes. Ooops. However, I DID pass the test, and I have the certificate to prove it.

We made it back home in good time - we even had time to stop for a picnic outside of a small town about halfway home. We got some hard boiled eggs, cold Cokes and bread. Yum yum.
We also had time for Grace to play on some abandoned tanks... even though we learned in our mine awareness seminar NOT to play on abandoned military equipment. But it WAS her birthday, so I think she was feeling a little invincible! I tried my best to bounce her out of the back of the truck, but she was smart and actually sat inside the truck when it was my turn to drive! It's like she thought I was out to get her or something... :D

Anyways, we made it home safe and sound, without too much ado about anything. That shower sure did feel nice! And we even had time to go out for Ethiopian food to celebrate Grace's birthday when we got back home! 'Twas a lovely time all around.

The God's Must be Crazy

I'm sitting here and watching "The God's Must be Crazy" in our verandah, enjoying some hibuscus flower tea and sitting in front of my fan.... ahhhh... the fan! The temperature is a bit cooler tonight (it's only 33C or so in here at the moment), but because of the huge rain storm that blew in during our dinner last night, it's quite humid and sweaty. Yuck. The movie was lent to us by one of the Dinka team members that we're working with here! He brought it from Uganda, but for some reason, it's got Japanese subtitles! I tell you, the crazy things that you find around here.

I keep thinking of things throughout the day that I want to blog about, but by the time I get to the blog, I can't think of anything interesting to say! And I've not had much time to blog, either, since there's still no city power. It's strange how regimented my time becomes when I have such a tight schedule of electricity! And I just realized that I was going to go and put some laundry in the washing machine while the electricity was on tonight, but I forgot, and now there's not enough time. Yup, that's right, I said WASHING MACHINE! Really, life is getting to be quite posh around here. I no longer spend a few hours every week scrubbing my clothes by hand. Life is pretty good, I tell you.

Too much information

You know you've been living in close quarters with people for too long when you can dig through a pile of freshly ironed underwear and figure out which ones belong to your housemates and forget which ones are your own...

I had a really nice time this afternoon chatting with one of the women who lives in one of the other houses on the compound. Richard and his old men were pulling up the pipes, and we were sitting around "stupid-vising". I have never really sat and chatted with her though, so it was nice to get to know her a bit.

Uh oh, gotta post before someone turns off the generator!

Fan!

I have exactly 5 minutes before we're plunged into darkness for the evening. But I thougth I'd better say something on my blog.

The excitement for the day: I got my birthday present today! Finally, a shipment came in with a brand spankin' new Black and Decker 16" Standing Fan. Wow. What a treat. So, whenever the electricity is on, I can sit in relative comfort! I was actually sitting in front of the fan and thinking a bit about the part in "Gone with the Wind" when Scarlett is at Tara and saying, "I'll never go hungry again..." And all I could think about was, "I'll never be sweaty again!"

It's SO nice to have a fan. It cost a bit... quite a bit more than the same thing would be anywhere else in the world. But wow, what a difference it has already made to my quality of life! It makes it pleasant to sit around, and I can think and move, instead of just sitting and sweating and thinking about how hot I am.

Too bad the city power's not working these days! But my few minutes are up, so I'll post them toddle off to the generator shed to turn the thing off!

Sunday night

Phew, guess what? It's hot. And we're all sitting on the verandah watching Grace's hedgehog chase my cat around. I'm a little disappointed with Zane Khawaija - scared of a little hedgehog. How's he ever going to chase Templeton, if he's scared of a little baby hedgehog?!

Unfortunately, something has happened to our city electricity, so we're using the generator. Which means that we have 19 more minutes until we are plunged into darkness until dawn. Thank goodness for my headlamp :)

Hopefully I'll blog more tomorrow, since I'm going to take a few hours off of work. We've had two consecutive weekends of Saturday teacher trainings, with no days off, so we're going to have a bit of a rest tomorrow afternoon, too. And if I haven't turned into a little puddle of sweat by tomorrow afternoon, I'll blog some more. Amazing how much hotter it gets when there are fans. I'm looking forward to a sweaty night tonight - a nice shower will cool me down a bit, I think, just enough to fall asleep...

Spring Break Blog 4

The next morning, as we were driving into town to fetch James, and there was, well, an unusual build up of men wearing camoflogue, carrying large weapons, jumping into big trucks in the middle of town. Not exactly a reassuring sight when you know you have to drive back home the following day... But all was quiet, so I'm not sure where they were all going... not sure that I want to know, actually!

Once James was fetched, we drove out to the site of the new translation and literacy offices. A Kenyan contractor is there, with a crew, building a building. I'm sure it's going to be a great place, and it was interesting to hear some of the challenges that this Kenyan is facing in trying to get a building built in that area! I'm sure glad it's not me that has to do it! This Kenyan seems to be a really good guy, though, and seems to be there out of a real sense of calling, and not just there for a job, which is refreshing to see.

As we were sitting around and watching the building going up, a couple of boys from the surrounding area came to check out what the white folks were doing. They were so cute, and were really interested in sizing up Andy. As Andy and the crew were all squatting in the sand, working out some costs and figures with sticks in the dirt, the boys were squatting right there with them, looking like they knew exactly what they were talking about!
While all the important people talked about important things, Grace and I just puttered around the former battle ground.

We also communed with nature a little.
But we were careful where we stepped... since the area IS a former battlefield.
I should say here that I was very careful about wandering around, though, just as I had learned in my mine awareness training. Really, that mine awareness was good training, and it came just at the right time. Who would have guessed I would be seeing so many of the mines and unexploded bits, without even going looking for them. It's such a huge problem here, and I can see why the MAGs and the other Mine awareness groups are so pushy in getting their message out around here.

There's not much more to say about our day on Monday. Nothing exciting happened until we started thinking about going to bed. Grace and I were just chit chatting in our room, as usual, when I happened to look up above her head. This is what I saw hanging out on the wall a few feet above her bed:
So of course, we first took a photo of it, then I went over to Andy's room to ask him for some advice on how to kill the things. He gave me a few instructions on how to kill the critter with a flip flop, and he must have seen the look of doubt on my face, so he kindly volunteered to come and kill it for us! I must say that men do come in handy once in a while :) Scorpion killing was just one of many lessons that I got from Andy on this trip. I actually feel like it was a really good bit of orientation to this country! Who needs an official "Africa Orientation Course" when you can just cruise across the countryside with someone like Andy, who's lived here forever and is a bit of a jack of all trades?

Spring Break Blog 3

So the last I blogged, I was coming out of the church. Church was actually quite a lot of fun! As you can see from that last photo, it was just a little building made of thatch and sticks. It used to be a "proper" building made from steel and concrete. But then the war struck. So the compound now is full of bunkers and craters and piles of rubble where there once was a church building, along with a nice house for the pastors, rooms for Sunday school etc. War stinks.
The church service itself was conducted in the local Arabic language, with some translation into English. We sang mostly in the Arabic, but because this Arabic is written using the Latin script (like our alphabet) we could sing along :)

After the service, everyone filed out, while still singing, and stood in a circle around the compound, so as you filed out, you shook everyone else's hand. Quite a nice little thing, to greet everyone, but can you imagine how long it would take in a big church?! Phew. Makes me tired just thinking about that. I was enjoying watching a little guy playing with his jeep on a stick.
After church, we went back to our camp for lunch. Man, what a luxery to just have food there, ready and waiting when you're hungry! The afternoon was wonderful, as we just sat around and read and relaxed and napped until it was time to go for a little wander around the town with our local friend.

Leaving Andy at home, the rest of us lovely girls toddled off to town in the truck to meet James. We wandered around town a bit, stopping to see the gardens and the gazelles at the camp where we originally wanted to stay. We had a cup of water there, too, and my water even had a frozen chunk in it! Wow, luxery, I tell you, to have real ice! It's amazing to me how much I miss ice cubes sometimes. So yes, having a bit of ice in my water is definitely a blog-worthy moment to remember!

We wandered from the camp down to the dried-up river. It was a beautiful place to walk! I really felt like I was out in the wilderness, enjoying nature again. There wasn't a single plastic bag or empty plastic bottle in sight! After a little while, we came upon a place in the river bed where the people had dug down to where the water was. The men were all taking their Sunday afternoon baths, so we sort of, well, lingered on the opposite side of the river for a while until they were finished. James kept insisting that it was ok for us to go and watch them take their baths - in that culture, the men don't mind if the women sit around watching them bathe, but the men aren't allowed to watch the women bathe. But since the women aren't wearing too many clothes, anyways, I don't quite know why it matters so much... Anyways, I don't think any of us were particularly interested in standing around and watching a bunch of men bathe, so we pretended to be very interested in the figs on the tree that we were standing under!

Eventually, the guys finished their bath, and we wandered over the the water-hole, just out of curiosity. The women were down in the pit, collecting water with their gourds and pouring it into jerry cans to carry on top of their heads.We had a bit of a stare down with the women that were gathered there. Through James, we found out that they were quite intrigued by our hair - they wanted to know if our hair was fake or real! So we took off our hats and shook out our hair a bit to prove that it really was real and attached to our heads :) It's so funny, because they're just as curious about us as we are about them! The men didn't seem to too curious, though. They knew exactly what they were thinking... they wanted ME as a wife! Why is it that they always want ME for a wife - why not little Grace?! Anyways, I got out of the muddle by telling them that I was already spoken for... a little fib, maybe, but if it gets you out of getting married off to some guy at the water-hole, well, then I'm all for the telling of a little fib! Once they figured out that I was already taken, they moved on to May. She simply told them that they would have to send a letter, written in Chinese, to her father to ask his permission to marry her. That seemed to work. Funny, but they didn't ask about little Gracie!
So off we went, following the women in their little swishy skirts. The rest of our walk took us through a few mine fields, past a few unexploded ordinances, under some huge mango trees, past the house of James' friends who had just killed a giant queen ant and demolished her mound, and back into the town. In town, we met a man who made a bee-line for May, pointing at her and saying that she belonged to him. It was beautiful to see yet another example of love at first sight...

Unfortunately, May didn't reciprocate the feeling of love at first sight, and we were able to escape that guy by going into a little cafe and ordering some Cokes. Cokes down there are way bigger and way cheaper than the ones you get up here! It's even cheaper if you pay in Kenyan Shillings... no matter that we weren't even in Kenya!
Man, by the time we finished up our Cokes, it was starting to get dark, so we dropped off James, and returned to our camp in the forest for a nice cold shower, and another cooked meal! By 9pm, I was so tired, I could hardly keep my eyes open...

I digress...

So I was going to finish writing some more blog about our trip yesterday, but I was SO tired and I still had some work to do to prepare for our teacher training workshop today. Yesterday we were at a UN Security Training Workshop the whole day! Most of the folks there were from the various UN agencies, but they had opened up some spots for NGO folks, too, to get some training on security issues for this part of the world. It was a LONG day, let me tell you - 8am until 7pm! Phew. We just sat squashed all in a very small room, but at least it was semi-air conditioned. And we got a certificate and a compass to show for it all. Plus, of course, free bottled water and a yummy take out lunch in a styrofoam tray! The guy leading the seminar was quite funny, once I got used to his sense of humor, and Grace and I had a good laugh at one of the American participants. He was, well, um, pretty intense and taking himself WAY too seriously in his wrap around glasses, even while we all stood around inside drinking tea!

I think we did learn some useful things about UN Phases and Levels of security and got a bit closer to understanding some of the lingo. It was also an interesting glimpse into the inner workings of the UN. I know it's probably a broad generalization, but it seems that most of those folks are there because they have a contract and they're getting paid to be there. They have a whole different ethos than the rest of us do, which became apparent when it came time to hand out the styrofoam boxes of lunch. The poor teacher was up there, by himself, trying to hand out boxes of food to a hungry mob of 50. And no one stepped up to help him, even though all it would take is someone to open a bag and pass out the boxes! I couldn't stand it any longer... plus, I was hungry and wasn't able to push myself to the front of the line fast enough, so I started handing out the food. Later, when he needed help passing out the certificates, again, everyone just sat there and looked at him. So again, I jumped up and started passing out the certificates! I tell you, I shoudl be drawing a salary from the UN for all the help I've been giving them lately - at the Mine awareness seminar, I got their video showing for them, too!

Oh, but that's a bit of a digression. I meant to blog about the trip.

Let me start again in the next post!

Spring Break Blog 2

So the time came for lunch before I got very far on that last blog. I'm all filled up again with dinner, so I'll try blogging some more of the story...

Where was I? Oh right, sitting in the cool of the afternoon, in the shade, enjoying the breeze and the cooler temperatures, writing my memoirs by hand... come back in time with me, and I'll type those memoirs out here...

Following our teacher training workshop on Saturday morning, we all jumped in the truck, packed in like little sardines in a tin can. The men started out in the front seat, graciously allowing all 4 of us hippy girls to cuddle in the back seat. Fortunately, it was a nice overcast day, and we weren't all sticking to each other! We couldn't have asked for better weather for the drive out there. I have to admit that I was slightly anxious as we drove down the road, past all the burned out vehicles and over-turned trucks, being passed by matatus and trucks with armed guards on top!

Just a little ways past the only bridge out of town, over the Nile, we actually had to stop to ask for directions, as we came to an unmarked T-intersection! We had a good laugh about that one... and an even bigger laugh when we got to the next intersection and again tried consulting our map (thanks to the UN!) to make sure we were going the right direction. Who knew there were so many roads out there?!

But the road wasn't really as bad as I expected, and in parts, it was downright good - practically a highway. With Andy driving, we were reaching speeds of up to 100 km/h! But then again, Andy is a trained rally driver, and there were moments when we were skidding around the corners when I really thought that we were in the Dakar rally or something. Yikes! It was, um, yeah, a little scary at moments, but the way Andy was coaching the rest of us as we took our turns driving, it seemed like he knew what he was doing, and had some practice and training in that sort of driving. The breath-taking moments and potholes were all accompanied by a chorus from the backseat. Andy refered to our yelps as, "Squeals of delight". I'm not quite sure if that would quite describe how we were feeling :) Actually, though, we did have quite a few laughs punctuating the drive with various sound effects...

The country side that we were driving through was absolutley beautiful. With the weather being so nice and cool and a bit misty even, the mountains rising in the distance through the clouds, the fragrant trees, the freshly thatched villages, the cool mud beneath the tires... man, it was really refreshing!

Of course, there were signs everywhere that we were driving through a former war zone. Tanks and burned out trucks littered the sides of the road. Piles of unexploded ordinances, just like what we saw in the photos at our landmine awareness training, were stacked by the side of the road. We even saw a group of soldiers playing a horse-shoes type game with big old cartridges! We also passed a few big lorries filled to the brim with soldiers, carrying all their gear. Jerry cans, bags and even bikes were all strapped on to the sides of the trucks. One soldier even had his flip flops neatly strapped on his belt, secured around his waist so he wouldn't lose them!

We didn't stray too far into the bushes for our potty breaks - there are too many landmines still hanging around. There is alot of road work going on, except in one section, where the land is too marshy to be cleared of the landmines. It was the location of quite a number of fierce battles, and the land is covered in mines. People are very careful to stay on the road and not even get close to the red rocks and landmine warning signs. That particular section of road actually even felt very "dark". It had an ominous feeling to it, and reminded me of the dead marshes in Lord of the Rings!

Thankfully, we made it safe and sound to our destination. There were a lot of people praying for us as we travelled, and I know that it really IS God who got us there in one piece! We first went to one camp, to see if there was space for us, but it was full... so we drove off to the only other camp in town, to see if they had space for us! Thankfully, they did! Grace and I got to share a room again... I don't think I'd be able to sleep without her 3 feet away from me! The introverts also got to share a room. It was quite a nice place. For $25/night, we got a bed, a towel, a bar of soap, three meals per day, electricity from 7pm - midnight, a cold shower and squatty potties. Not too bad, I'd say. Next time, I think I'll bring my own plastic bucket so I can have a little bit of a basin of water in my room - it's pretty hard to take out contacts and wash your face at night when you're pouring water from a jerry can in the middle of the forest! But the camp was nicely forested, and quite peaceful. The food was good, and they even had hot chocolate to drink!

You can see some of the photos that I've posted in the album to see some of the facilities that we enjoyed. One thing about the squatty potties, too, is that they really do need to make the target slightly larger... it was quite the challenge to aim properly all the time! And I sure am glad that I remembered to bring my flip flops, since the "polite note" in the shower room requested that bathers don't urinate in the shower. Ewwww.... but really, it was no worse than most campgroups at home!

We did get to do some 4 wheel driving to get into the camp, though! The road was so muddy, so Andy gave us some 4 X 4 lessons! That was so much fun splashing through the muck! I think I posted photos of that in the album, as well :)

Basically, on Saturday night, we all just went to bed early, and didn't even make use of our full hours of generator electricity! Sunday morning was a relatively early morning at church. Church was another great experience. Here I am, coming out of the church:

Spring Break Blog 1

As I sit and wait for lunch, I'll just do a bit of blogging. My brain tends to shut down when I get hungry, so I'm not making much headway at the moment on my teacher training preparations... so I might as well start to catch up on the blog!

I was trying to keep a bit of a journal as we went, so I'll just type out here what I wrote (by hand!!) down there...

18 March 2007
Some observations from the front porch of our camp. Just so you get the feel of the thing, this is where I was when I was blogging by hand.

A lack of bloggage

So I haven't had time to properly blog yet! I thought I would be taking yesterday off and I could blog the whole of the day... but then, well, things got busy!

So here's a sneak peek again. I've just posted some photos in my album. There will be more of those to come, too.

Spring Break 2007

In case you haven't noticed, I've been away for a few days! We went on a Spring Break Road Trip down South. I have a ton of stories, so I'll properly blog about it tomorrow, but for tonight, it's enough to say that we're home safe and sound. And just to give you a taste of what's to come... here I am on Saturday, hanging out somewhere in Southern Sudan, not straying too far from the road for our pit stop ('cause there are a few landmines in the area):Man, it was a good trip! It's going to take one or two blogs, plus a Picasa web album, I think, to tell the whole story. For the moment, though, I feel like I'm STILL being bounced around in the truck. So I think it's time to have another drink of water and go to bed!

If you want to see where we went, check out the link to the UN maps and find the road that goes from Juba to Kapoeta. It's a distance of 280 km, and took us about 7 hours to cover today. It took us only 6 hours to cover the distance on Saturday... but that was with Andy driving a fair bit of the way, and, well, that's a story for tomorrow.

The plot thickens...

I tell you, there's so much to blog about these days that I could just sit here and blog the whole day... and then I could blog about blogging... or something.

Anyways, last evening all the khawaija jumped in the new truck and bounced along the back roads of Juba. We encountered a few stares along the way - it's not every day that you see a pick up truck hauling around 1 Canadian, 3 Americans, 5 Brits, 1 Chinese, and 2 Sudanese. Of course, there were only 5 seats INSIDE the truck, so the rest of us were piled into the back.
We had to pass through a little bit of a traffic jam on the way to the plot.
Once we got there, though, we all piled out of the truck to walk around the new plot of land that belongs to us and will be used, one day, for a translation and literacy center. Eventually, all the offices for the Sudanese projects will be based there, as well as a center for holding workshops and meetings. At the moment, though, this is what it looks like:
But someday... me and Grace might be working on this plot, consulting with the teams that are working here. We had a nice time all together on the plot; it's been prayed over, and has even been commissioned by the first frisbee game, played by me and Grace, and witnessed by the local children. They're probably wondering just what kind of rif raf are moving into the neighborhood.

"Thirty, Flirty and Thriving"

And how did this 30 year old spend her first day in a new decade? Changing truck tires and mopping up raw sewage, in between organizing a teacher training program, figuring out how to send a text message on the satellite phone, and serving Coke to the Executive Committee members. I love living in Juba! Really, where else can you do all these things during the course of a single working day?

Grace and I were actually going to wash the old truck this afternoon. As she was backing it into the "washing spot", I happened to look at the front tire. This is what it looks like:
Can you see the little split right down the middle of the tire? Just as I noticed the split tire, we also noticed that Richard and his old men had all of the hoses in the back of the guesthouse because the sewer system had become all backed up...

So instead of washing the truck, Grace and I learned how to change the tire on the truck. The first challenge was getting the spare tire out from underneath the truck.
Then, while Grace was doing that, Richard had the sewage leak under control enough for me to start cleaning up the sewage that was flowing through our room and into the verandah. Man, that was a messy job. I felt really bad for Richard and his old men, as they had the REALLY stinky job. I was doing my best to keep Zane out of the little river in our room, and filling up the mop bucket with lots and lots of bleach!

By the time I had the floor cleaned up, Grace had the tire changed ... only to realize that the spare tire was completely flat, as well. Oh well... all in a days' work here in Juba!

An opportunity to travel out to a different town has come up this weekend. I'm praying that things will work out with the timing of the teacher training that we're starting this weekend, too. If the truck can wait for me, then I can go. If not, then, well, I'll stay here, and we'll see what happens... But it would be GREAT to be able to go out there and see what this country side is like, finally!

Fun Birthdays

I'm about to go to bed, but Grace is taking her third shower of the day, so I can't get in the bathroom yet. She just told me before she got in the shower, "We had a good birthday, didn't we?!"

She wrote all about it on her blog tonight. I won't bother writing it up, 'cause she had the inside scoop on some of the plans for the day!

And, just becuase...

I'm waiting for the folks to finish their meeting so the ones that want to join us for Ethiopian can do so... but it's 5:30pm, so I'm just sitting here on the computer catching up on friend's blogs. I moved my arm to pet my cat, and this is what I found left on my computer:
I need to keep a sweat rag near my computer to wipe the sweat from my arm off periodically. Now that's not something you see everyday at home!

(Sorry if you find that a little disgusting... but welcome to my world! It's much cooler in my office/room now (37C) than it was earlier this afternoon. I didn't even want to know earlier...)

It's all about ME!

On this day, throughout history:

1489 - The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to Venice.
1794 - Eli Whitney received a patent for the cotton gin.
1804 - Johann Strauß, Sr., Austrian composer (d. 1849) was born
1879 - Albert Einstein, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955) was born
1883 - Karl Marx, German political theorist (b. 1818) died
1923 - World's first hockey broadcast
1991 - Kurt Browning wins third consecutive World Figure Skating
In Japan and Korea it's White Day - A holiday similar to Valentine's Day (men give gifts to women)

And, most importantly, on this day, many years ago, I was born!

Here's how I spent this most auspicious occasion.
The sneaky people here for the meetings asked me to go down to the corner store to fetch some cold Cokes. So while Grace and I were getting the Cokes, they brought out the cake that Pam had baked for me this morning :) So when I came in, they all started singing Happy Birthday. And later, I'm going to go out to eat some Ethiopian food with a few of the folks here. Maybe we'll even take our new truck which came a few days ago with some folks who are here for a meeting from Uganda.
So far, for my birthday, I've had a cold Coke, a chocolate cake, a little bag of peanut M & Ms, and a beautiful water color card from Jackie.
And in a little while we're going out for Ethiopian food again... it feels a bit lush to spend so much money AGAIN on Ethiopian food. But really, it's my only pleasure in life here :D And a girl only turns 30 once in her life! And you know, if I was back home, I'd probably celebrate my birthday the exact same way!

Update on Matthew

So we went to visit Matthew this afternoon. The folks who had been to visit him earlier brought back the prescription that was scribbled on a scrap of paper for him. Unfortunatly, the pharmacy was closed, so I went off to my little pharmacy in a drawer. Amazingly enough, I actually had the antibiotics that he needed! Someone had left a super-duper medical kit in Entebbe when he went home, and so Grace and I pilfered some of the things out of there, and amazingly enough, this particular antibiotic was one of them. The other antibiotic that he was supposed to have is doxycycline, which I have a good supply of, because we use it as a malaria prophylaxis when the mossies get bad. Anyways, I felt like a real missionary when I trooped over to his house and distributed the medicine, explaining to him how and when to take the tablets. On the way back, I was talking with Alec, the other guy who works with us here, and telling him how to prevent cholera. Hopefully he'll start boiling his water from now on! We don't need him getting sick, too! Anyways, Matthew seems to be recovering quickly. He ate a bit of food today and was able to keep it inside his body where it belongs, so that's a good sign. I'm sure now that he has the antibiotics, things will clear up quickly. He sure didn't look strong enough to come back to work with us any time soon, though!

Ok, I'm really tired again, and the effort of typing is making me sweat, even though it's nearing 11 pm! So I'd better go and lay down sleep. Zane is having fun playing with his little ball, but he's pretty good with going to sleep when we turn out the lights. More about Matthew and our little trip there tomorrow...

Hitting Close to Home

I just found out this morning that Matthew, one of the boys who works with us here on the compound, was admitted to the Cholera hospital on Sunday night. The very same cholera hospital that we passed yesterday and that I blogged about yesterday! Man, it hits close to home when your friends are there. Matthew is the one on the right, in the pinkish shirt.
Richard is out at the moment, but as soon as he comes in, I need to ask him about what we can do to help. Even if we could just bring him some fresh fruit or something...

Anyways, the good thing is that he's a strong, generally healthy young man, and so should recover fairly quickly, unless he contracts something else in that cholera hospital! Sounds like with treatment, recovery rate is very high, so I'm sure he'll be ok... But please pray for Matthew and his family and for the rest of the cholera patients here. With the coming of the rainy season, it's only going to get worse here. Thankfully, we have our own bore hole water supply here on the compound, so the risk to us here is fairly low. But it's not easy to see the rest of the folks in this city suffer.

Signs of Juba

Grace and I had to go and guard Richard when he went to get someone registered at the airport today. While we were waiting with our sunglasses on (we left the matching hats and shirts and shoes at home), I noticed a sign in the airport. We couldn't figure out what it meant... and I was going to write the message here to see if any of YOU had a clue as to what it meant. But now neither Grace and I can remember what it said! I should have written it down. I'm sure I'll go back to the airport again someitme in the next few days... I know, it makes the story a little anti-climactic...

But there are still a few choice signs around here. This is one of my favorites:

One of the other signs that we see once in a while on our travels once again underscores the fact that life in this city is hard, and death is a part of everyone's lives:
We also passed the cholera clinic as we were driving around with Richard doing some errands this afternoon. It just keeps expanding. Cholera patients have to be kept in isolation, so they're just putting up more and more tents in a big field a few blocks away from the hospital (well, if you can call it a hospital!). I can't imagine what kind of care those patients are getting, since it's been SO hot, they're just in tents in a big open field, and as far as I know, the families wouldn't be allowed in to nurse them. We have so much to be thankful for with our health system, and all of the systems at home that prevent things like cholera outbreaks. Sorry to end on a bit of a low note there, but I think it's time to go play a round of frisbee golf.

Early to Bed

Phew, it's a lot of work when 10 new people decend upon one's guest house and there is no guesthouse manager and no cook. Jackie and I (and Grace, too!) have been doing most of the guesthouse managing. Jackie's been great at doing all the administrative stuff, making sure people know which accounts to charge for everything. We also did some meal planning together, so that we could make sure all these hungry mouths were fed. Then I also had to go to the market (for the fourth time in three days) to buy some food to feed the hungry mouths!

Just after I blogged this morning, I also took my turn as chauffer... driving a whole truck load (5 in the cab, two in the box in the back!) to church. That was kind of fun, but I felt really bad about bouncing the Africa Area director's wife around in the box of the truck! I should have been sitting back there, but I had been the designated driver...

Church was good, but we didn't get to stick around and chat because people were hungry. So off we went, and I immediately went to the kitchen to help Jackie and May make lunch for 14 of us. Phew. Then I cleaned up after lunch, made some lunch for Zane, and had a meeting with Grace (the Ugandan cook who almost got lost in the bus station yesterday!) to help her plan the meals.
Then the best part of the day - a round of Frisbee golf. I love that game! Grace took a photo of Jackie, the Bilingual Education Director and me, the Deputy Bilingual Education Director, posing with our birthday present hats :)

Of course, our Mennonite neighbor who joined us actually won. But I got under 30 this time! So we're improving, and we might even need to make the course a bit more challenging after a few more rounds...

Anyways, straightaway after that, Grace made me go to the market with her and Grace, on the aforementioned 4th market trip in three days. On the way home, I was trying to explain to the new Grace all about the money system here. The money system here is a blog in and of itself, so I'm not going to explain it all here! Let's just say it's less than straightforward. But I'm sure the new Grace will catch on. She seems pretty sharp :) It's going to fun to have her around this week, I think. But man, it sure will be a lot easier if the same cook would come again, rather than having new ones come in all the time. She also seemed rather shocked when she saw the state of our kitchen, and our utter lack of kitchen utensils. But we don't really have any other choice, and we're pretty much dependent on certain people in Uganda to send us stuff, so I shouldn't feel responsible for it...

So yeah, we ended up making another meal for everyone - of course, by the time I got through the line, there was only half a mug full of soup left, and poor Richard, who came about 5 minutes after me, didn't get any! But such is the lot of the cook...

I'm going to bed before I start complaining! I'm just feeling rather tired and not much rested. So I think I'd better go to sleep now and be nice and fresh for tomorrow. There's still a lot of work ahead to help this cook get up and running. I feel so bad for her, too, as she's sort of just been shipped up here without too much thought, and trying to get used to being here, too! She's never been in this country before, so I think she's having to make some serious adjustments, too... but we'll all make it through together, I'm sure! And we might even have some fun in the meantime!

Directions in Juba

I get emails every day inviting us to NGO forums, meetings and other gatherings on various development and aid initiatives in this place. Normally, I don't go to them, since we're not really involved in a lot of the same kinds of programs that these things seek to address... but I just wanted to include a typical set of directions to get to the office where this particular meeting is being held.

Directions to the JCC: if you are on the road that goes from Malakia to Custom Market, you pass the Amen shop on your left and soon after passing Amen, you will see red containers on the right hand side of the road and a petrol station. Take that road on the right (between the containers and the petrol station) and then turn on the first road on the left. You will see the JCC sign and the building (wired fence and green metallic gate).

This is how we find places in Juba because there are no road names, no street numbers, and no addresses.

Now I'm off to church. I'll go out to the blue police post, between the truck axel and the big blue container. I'll turn left until I get to the big dirt square and turn right on the one and only tarmack road. After the UNDP building, I'll take a right on the track that cuts through the small open space where they're making bricks. Then I'll follow the road across the ditch, and head towards the big tree. I'll veer to the right, avoiding the biggest pothole, then go straight on at the sign that says, "Armed conflict is hazardous to your health". A sharp right at the petrol station will bring me to the ECS Cathedral.

Rain, Glorious Rain!

Last night, we woke up to a cool breeze and a pounding on the tin roof! It was raining! It's not exactly the season for rain, but we're sure not complaining! This morning, before it was time to get out of bed, I even took out my sheet and covered myself with the sheet because I was almost cold. Wow. It may have been the last time in my 20's that I sleep covered with something...

Grace and I couldn't even go down to the corner to get donuts for everyone, since it was raining too much!

We did, however, have to go out in the mud to fetch another couple at the airport. We've still got three people to come, and then we're full to capacity in this guesthouse. Phew, it's hard to find a place to sit where there are no people! Good thing me and Zane like people!

On the way to the airport, we stopped downtown at the bank for Jackie to change some money. Grace and sat and guarded the truck (we were both wearing our pink and yellow tie-died guard duty flip flops anyways), and took some photos of the street scened. This is the scene from the street across the road from the bank. And yes, there really IS that much garbage on the streets downtown. There's no such thing as a garbage truck, or even a garbage dump anywhere here. So everyone just throws their garbage on the ground, or dumps their shop garbage in the street in front of their shop or house.
We successfully changed the money, I successfully asserted myself in the road as I tried to manouever out of my parking "spot", and then we successfully picked up our friends from the airport. This couple first came here in 1977, and already, on the way home from the airport, they were harking back to the old days! This is going to be a great week full of good stories, I'm sure!

On the way back to the compound, passed the photocopy/fresh milk shop. We've never actually gone there to see if there is fresh milk, but we have gone to photocopy our passports, which we ended up not needing to register...
We also waved to the kids in the neighborhood, as usual. Grace even snapped a photo of the neighborhood as we drove by. These are our closest neighbors:
Unfortunately, we've noticed that there's a lot more garbage in our neighborhood than there was when we left... but that just stands to reason, since there's been a few months of garbage from even more people, collecting in the streets. If only someone would start a garbage collection business. Much of the garbage is just old plastic bottles - water bottles, coke bottles, juice bottles... things that we bring back to the recycle place and get 5 cents for back home. You could honestly become a millionaire if you collected the plastic bottles from this place. I think Richard should be able to come up with some kind of plan to use them as fuel for the generator or something...

I'm sure this won't be the last post of the day. With so many people around this place, I may end up sitting right here at my desk in my room, keeping Zane and Grace company. Just like this (but most days my hair isn't as wonky - the rain has made it rather humid...). Also notice how "Tanya at home" on a Saturday morning looks much the same as "Tanya at the office" (Previously posted photo, but posted again for comparison sake).

Twice to the market

Today I went to the market TWICE, a record for me, I think. Good thing it's only a few minute's walk away, but even at that, you really get rather grimy on the way! I had to go this morning to get some supplies for the cat - some tiny raw fishes (** EDIT: Grace says that saying the fishes are raw is misleading. They are actually dried, so they're not slimy or anything. If I wasn't so durned hot, I'd go to the kitchen and take a photo of them for you! Perhaps tomorrow...) and a big plastic tub to use as a litter box. The kitty is staying inside our room at night, since he likes to have company, according to his "ex-family". And it did work well to have him in our room with us. Of course, it was so hot last night again, I didn't sleep too well. At one point when I woke up drenched in sweat, I heard some gnawing, crunching sounds. It wasn't coming from Zane, who was sleeping on the opposite side of the room from where the gnawing was coming from. I grabbed my headlamp and tried to figure out where the rat was... but alas, to no avail. And Zane, obviously, was no help or deterent the little gnawing creature.
And yes, you did read correctly. I am feeding my cat fish. Little tiny dried fish. Whole fish. With heads and tails and eyeballs. And I actually touched them to put them in the cat bowl. This is committment, I tell you.

It actually dawned on me last night, as I was admiring Zane, that I LIVE here. I always wanted to get a cat once I settled in a place that I knew I would be for more than a year or so. And now, here I am. Settling in JUBA of all places! It's a bit scary and sobering, actually. I'm responsible for something more than just myself here. I mean, I know it's just a scrawny little cat, but even so... you've gotta start somewhere, right?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention why I'd been to the market twice today... I had to go again this evening to buy some MORE food. The troops who are coming in for the Executive Committee of our Branch have started to arrive. And like it or not, Jackie, Grace and I are basically hosting them in our house. Which we didn't really think through, so we had to buy some more food this evening! So off we went again to the market... I sure did need a shower by the time I got home.

I DID do some work today too. We had yet another meeting with someone at the Ministry this morning. I won't go into all the details, but it sure was interesting to see what the guy's expectations of us are...

I told you something exciting always comes up...

On Sunday evening, an American couple (well, I assumed they're American, but could potentially be Canadian) came by here. They had heard through another girl living on our compound here that I was interested in finding a kitten. So they came to offer their little kitten to me - a three month old FEMALE cat. Well, I'm not interested in figuring out how to spay a cat on our kitchen table, nor am I interested in caring for a bunch of kittens. So I said no thanks, even though it would be perfect to take this little kitten, who's been loved by a couple of North Americans since it was a tiny little thing.

But this evening, just as we were sitting in the porch thinking about getting some dinner together, this same couple drove up... and with them was the cutest little black kitten. They came out, and declared that the cat is actually a boy cat! I called over Grace, the farm girl and male animal parts expert, and she confirmed that yes, indeed, this is a boy cat!

So I took him, then and there, on the spot :) And just today I had been thinking about a good cat name... and I had one all picked out already! So now, introducing, "Zane" the cat.
So once Zane settled in a little, we went over to the kitchen to start making some dinner. Jackie, in her understated British fashion, exclaimed, "Oh, a rat!". The poor little rat was trapped in behind the jerry cans and water barrels. So of course, now that we have a cat in the house, we had to get him used to our guesthouse rats ASAP. Grace scampered off to find Zane, and we put him down to have a head to head with the rat. Even though it was just a little rat, Zane still needed a little help from Richard and his flip flop to actually kill the rat. Good old Richard is a real trooper, stomping on a rat with his broken flip flop. We sure do like that guy... but give Zane a few days, and Richard's going to have some competition in the rat hunting territory!

Once the little rat was good and dead, we left him on the floor in the dining room to see if Zane would develope a taste for rat. He just knocked it around a bit, and then prefered to move on to his own dinner of left over stew! Of course, being the good new mother that I am, I had to take photos of Zane's first rat!
Grace and I got some dirt from the garden to make a little kitty box for him, and we've put a bowl of water in our room. His former family said he likes to sleep with people, so we'll keep him in here for the night and see how he does! I'm off to play with my new friend :)

A generic post with no interesting title

Today I'm blogging whilst attmpting to cool down. Hmmm... actually, that's not really too noteworthy, as it's a normal state of affairs around here.

This morning started off with a nice cool walk down to the corner to buy some bread and donuts for breakfast. As I was buying the bread, which wasn't really quite up to snuff, I told Grace, "Sunday's not going to like this bread..." But it was all there was, so I bought it! It just wasn't quite as fluffy as it normally is. It's not as though we have a lot of choice in the bread that we buy or anything!
We also bough our nice grease balls to sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and enjoy with our coffee, imported from Uganda.

As soon as breakfast was over, we had another meeting to discuss the schedule for the teacher training that I put together yesterday. I really like working as a team, and including everyone's ideas into something... but man, sure does take longer than it would if I did it myself. But with my limited experience in this area, and the Dinka team's vast experience, it would be simply foolish of me to go it alone! So we switched some things around and got a timetable that I think we're all pretty happy with. It will be interesting to see how closely we end up sticking to this timetable... but at least we have something to start with!

For lunch, we had ful beans! A classic Sudanese treat... well, Vicky and Sunday didn't see it as much of a treat, but I sure did! Sunday cooked the beans up on the charcoal stove on back porch, and combined with some tomatoes, onions and jibna (goat cheese), mmmm... it was so delicious! Of course, as I predicted, I didn't hear the end of how terrible the bread was! Vicky told me in no uncertain terms that if the bread is that bad again, I am supposed to wait until she comes and she will go and find good bread in the market!

Following the yummy lunch, which I think I enjoyed most of all, Jackie and I suddenly realized that we didn't have the truck to use to get to our meeting with some folks in the Ministry of Education! Richard was out in the truck, and we hadn't mentioned to him that we were going out. There are certain situations in which we realize just how handicapped we are without any phones or radios or any other means of communication. We DO, however, have the satellite phone sitting here, and since we never use it, we thought we'd try it out. Being from up North, Richard has a cell phone with a SIM card in it! However, just as I was figuring out how to dial his number, he pulled into the parking lot.Too bad, we didn't get to use the $2 per minute sat phone to see where our truck was...

Anyways, off we went to our pre-arranged meeting at the Ministry with three folks there. Since Jackie knew someone in one of the offices there, we didn't have to wait under the tree, but instead sat inside one of thier new pre-fab air conditioned buildings to wait! And good thing we did, since we waited for over an hour! As we sat, we chatted with a woman who is helping with Teacher Training and met up with a few others working in that office, as well. Of course, it seemed that the ones we were supposed to meet were off in a different meeting... so after an hour of enjoying the A/C, we decided it was time to go back home! Next time we go for a meeting, I must remember to bring my book to read :)

And that, my friends, is the play by play of my day so far. It may not seem that I've accomplished much, but actually, it's been quite a successful day as far as things go here in Juba!

Blogging Whilst Waiting...

Seems I'm always blogging whilst waiting for something else to happen... (tee hee, I love that word, "whilst". I'm learning to use my best Jane Austen English with Jackie around!). At the moment, I'm waiting for my turn in the shower. And hopefully once I've showered, supper will be on!

Ok, so here I am all showered up. But still no sign of dinner... I made our lunch, so it's someone else's turn to do dinner :)

This morning, I went off to the market with Sunday, one of the girls who helps us out here at the guest house. I love charging through the market with a Sudanese girl! They don't really have a sense of Canadian politeness like me, so really, it's just fun to see how she can just order people around and tell them to give her this and pass her that, and take THAT tomatoe, not this one... And we had a little argument about the onions - I wanted to buy them in the "local" section which is cheaper, but she absolutely wouldn't buy them there. We had to go buy "kwais" (good) onioins in the Ugandan section, which are about 50 cents more expensive because they're shipped here from Uganda. I couldn't tell the difference between the two onions - an onion is an onion, isn't it?!

We also bought some meat in the market, the only meat we've had since coming here. I'm getting to the point where I can start to examine the different bits of animal sitting on the "tables" in front of the butchers. There seem to be an awful lot of tables full of unrecognizable creature parts! But I know they're all beef because of the various heads and hooves sitting around under and on top of the tables.

When I came back from the market adventure, I had a short meeting with Moses, one of the participants in the literacy course that I was teaching at for the past few years in Kenya. He's assigned to work with the government, but is also continuing his work with the Dinka translation and literacy team until things really get going... Anyways, it was good to get a little work done today!

I also continued thinking about our teaching training schedule and the "Available books" list whilst supervising the whole stew lunch thing. I boiled the meat for quite some time, and then Sunday was a little shocked when I started chucking vegetables into the pot with the meat! She had gotten all excited about eating meat. Meat and only meat for lunch. Both Vicky and Sunday were a little dubious of my attempts at making stew, but it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. I am now adding Italian seasoning to my list of things to never leave home without.

Whilst eating lunch, we were getting all excited about going to the UN for our Mine Action meeting. We were wondering, will everyone get a T-Shirt? How many free bottles of water could we take? What should we wear so we don't get too cold in the A/C?

However, once we arrived at the place, we were rather disappointed. The Mine Action office apparently gets shafted in all things good about the UN. No Water. No A/C. And horribly enough, no sign of the promised T-shirts. All we came home with were heads full of knowledge of how horrible landmines are, a cd of info, and a few posters, pictured here:
Since we didn't get water or a T-shirt (not even for ME, who ended up working as an IT tech during the presentation), we decided to head over to Mango Camp for a nice cold Coke. We stopped in at the State level Ministry of Education to drop off some papers - the place was deserted, but we were able to just push open a few doors and set the envelope on the desk of the Ministry of Education. We were hoping as we left that we wouldn't get shot at or something for being someplace that we shouldn't have been!

At sundown, Jackie and I convinced Grace to play a round of Frisbee Golf again. We weren't able to convince Richard to join us, but he was let off the hook today because the poor guy's suffering from malaria. The best part of the whole game was when Jackie's frisbee landed right on top of one of our poor chicks... he met his demise yesterday, but hadn't gotten cleaned up since his body was left in the cage. Only Jackie could succeed in landing her frisbee right on top of a dead chicken inside it's cage! Thankfully, that was the second to last "hole" in our game, and we promptly soaked the frisbee in some bleach, not quite knowing what these chickens are dying of! Wouldn't that be something if we suffered from the first case of bird flu contracted by humans through a frisbee?!

Man, today was so exciting, I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow holds...

Perhaps if nothing else happens tomorrow, I'll write about the horrors of landmines. Really, they are terrible weapons of war that just end up hurting innocent people! But now I know all about them, so I should be relatively safe...

Fresh Meat!

So after a rousing game of Frisbee golf by the light of the setting sun, a lovely left overs dinner, and a cup of tea on the veranda, I was pretty nearly ready to call it an early evening. First, however, I had to kill a giant grasshopper that was fluttering around my head with my flip flop. Then, I was just about to sign out of my Yahoo messenger when "Snap"! The rat trap we had set in the kitchen went off!

Grace and I gingerly made our way to the kitchen, a little afraid of what we might find there. Unfortunately, Richard was diagnosed with malaria this evening at the clinic, so he wasn't able to join in our discovery...

Looks like there will be fresh meat for lunch tomorrow!

Callin' her a day

Phew. I'm glad it's 5pm. I've decided that 5 is the end of my work day here, unless, of course, I'm on a real roll or something. I must admit, though, I sorta packed her in a few minutes ago. I just couldn't concentrate anymore with the sweat rolling down my back. I did quite a lot today, including going to the stationary shop to acquire some stationary for our office! However, it does take it out of you when your office is 38C for most of the day.

I sent a photo of myself in my office yesterday to my friend in Ethiopia. She wrote back and said, "what a nice bed you have in your office". What she didn't realize is that my office and my bedroom are one and the same :) So here's another photo of me in my office/bedroom. How many people in the world can roll out of bed every morning and already be in their office? The commute is pretty sweet, I tell you.

Real Work!

There's a lovely breeze blowing through our room, Richard is pacing back and forth between our leaky kitchen sink and his workshop, Grace is reading a book on the rattan sofa outside my window, and Jackie is teaching Sunday and Vicky (our two house helpers) how to cook lentils and pasta in the kitchen. And I'm just sitting here waiting to be fed. Man, life is tough! There are even clean sheets on my bed. I think Vicky was pretty disgusted by the old ones when she went to make my bed this morning. They were getting pretty grimy, especially since we had a little haboob (dust storm) last evening.

We were all sitting on the sofa on the veranda, watching a dvd on my computer, when the wind started howling, and a huge cloud of dust swirled in through the screens. Everything got covered, but as quickly as it all came up, it all died down again.

This morning, I actually sat down to some real work! We had our second meeting with the Dinka team who work in one of the containers on the compound. Jackie and I are working together with them to get some teacher training planned for a local school that we had visited in November. It's non-formal, adult education for Dinka, mainly. I have to admit that it's a little scary to be in charge of planning a teacher training, since I've never done anything like it before, but there are a lot of resources available to help us out. A couple that I met at a conference in Swaziland last year (who are now in the UK) spent a lot of time in this area doing Dinka teacher training, as well, and they've sent me their whole manual and all of their plans and resources, too! We start in a week and a half, so this afternoon I'm going to sit down and try to get a schedule hammered out. We discussed the topics this morning, and once I get those slotted in, I'll go back to Amos and the rest of the Dinka and get their approval... and see which sections of it they're going to teach :)

I'm going to have to practice writing on a chalkboard again, since I can't use my power point for this training! That's going to be a switch from most of the training I've ever done!

Another exciting prospect around here is a demining meeting tomorrow at the UN. Grace, Jackie and I are all going to enjoy a few hours in the UN A/C and learn all about demining. We might even come home with a T-shirt, according to the advert...

And finally...

A small photo album of Juba.

Around the compound in Juba